When I left university and came to London with Andy my first job was a graduate traineeship at Mercury Communications, the telephone company set up as a rival to the de-nationalised British Telecom. I worked in various bits of the company - from the mobile phone division, to the messaging division to managing the Criminal Justice Sector Marketing for the Government Sector Division. At this time the internet was in its early infancy and being developed and used by techie people in darkened rooms. Not long after I joined Mercury a new Chief Executive was appointed, his name was Mike Harris - he was (and is) a real business visionary and he spearheaded a company wide programme called Imagine 97 (bearing in mind it was 1992 at the time!!!) which was focused on getting the whole company to think about the possibilities of communication and technology offered by the company five years on (and beyond). I vividly remember the main premise was that the communications sector would grow to offer what the company called "PIE in the Palm" - People, Information and Technology in the Palm of your hand.

On Sunday I completed my last run in the challenge I had set myself earlier this year to run 7 races to mark 7 years of care by our hospice, ShootingStar-Chase for our family. The last race in my series of runs was the Loseley 10k - a very challenging cross country run over fields, up hills and down sandy tracks - made even more challenging by the torrential rain we drove through to get there! I was joined by my lovely boys, Theo and Jules who had been cajoled into running the 4k version of the race. I had also agreed to give a speech to the assembled runners on the start line about the hospice and what it means for our family. This is what I mean when I titled this post extreme multi-tasking - really how many other people turning up for that race had had to get up several times the night before to administer pain relief to their child, disconnect her TPN, rouse the reluctant boys, battle through driving rain and closed roads then stand up and give a speech before jumping off the stage and running 10K across muddy fields????

I have four extraordinary children, my two boys have a diagnosis of high functioning autism yet they could not be more different, my eldest daughter is a creative social justice warrior, my youngest daughter was born with a very rare genetic condition.

In December 2015 I also became a widow, my husband, the father of my children & partner of 27 years, Andy, died of cancer, leaving us with a gaping hole in our lives. 13 months later our darling daughter Daisy died.

My life was never going to be predictablebut as Andy always said, it is what it is, it's how you respond which makes the difference.